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Abstract:Simeon Djankov et al. (2003) introduce a measure of the quality
of contract enforcement -- the formalism of civil procedure -- for 109
countries as of 2000. For 40 of these countries, we compute procedural
formalism every year since 1950. We find that large differences
in procedural formalism between common and civil law countries
existed in 1950 and widened by 2000. For this area of law, the findings
are inconsistent with the hypothesis that national legal systems
are converging, and support the view that legal origins exert long
lasting influence on legal rules. (JEL K41, O17)

FiveThirtyEight covered the ongoing debate over teacher evaluation, citing two companion papers that appeared together in the September 2014 issue of the American Economic Review. In "Measuring the Impacts of Teachers" I and II the authors construct "value-added" estimates for teachers in a large urban school district by observing how students' test scores change from year to year as they pass through each teacher's classroom. They find that their teacher value-added scores are not significantly biased and are potent predictors of students' later-life outcomes.

Wonkblog covered an article published this month in the American Economic Journal: Applied Economics. In Saving Lives at Birth: The Impact of Home Births on Infant Outcomes the authors study a sample of over 300,000 Dutch women and find that home birth increases the risk of newborn mortality, especially for low-income women, likely because of reduced access to medical technologies after delivery.

A Wall Street Journalanalysis of potential merger activity in the health insurance industry cited a study published in the American Economic Review. In "Paying a Premium on Your Premium? Consolidation in the US Health Insurance Industry," the authors found that a 1999 merger between two large U.S. health insurers drove up customer premiums and depressed doctors' earnings in certain parts of the country.